What the Sergeant Saw: The Regan Peverill Case
by noenigma
Summary: A story exploring what made Hathaway decide he wanted to work with Lewis. Based on the pilot episode. A companion piece to the Inspector Morse story What the Sergeant Saw: The Jericho Case.


Note: Almost every time I rewatch the pilot, I wonder just what did Hathaway see in Lewis that made him want to be his sergeant? This story attempts to answer that question. I've tried to not stray from the things Hathaway could have seen or learned in the episode, but I'm sure all the things I know (or feel I do, anyway) about Lewis from all of his years with Morse have colored his perceptions to one degree or another.

This is a companion piece to the Inspector Morse story What the Sergeant Saw: The Jericho Case.

What the Sergeant Saw: The Regan Peverill Case

"Well, that's certainly my view, but Hathaway has asked me to give you first refusal."

Hathaway wanted to be his sergeant? Lewis knew Grainger…he was a good enough copper. He'd have a lot to teach the younger man, and he'd be low maintenance and a known quantity. Lewis looked over at the awkward, lanky sergeant and wondered what he could possibly have seen in the two days they had been more or less accidentally thrown together that would make him chance passing up a spot with a good governor.

Must be something Hathaway had found out about Grainger. Certainly not something he'd seen in Lewis. Lewis hadn't even been at his best behavior. Hadn't been trying in the least to make a good impression or anything of the like.

Coming home, or coming back to a place that had once been his home before that nightmare day Val took the train to London and never came back, had been…had it? Been harder than he expected? Nah. He'd known it would be bad, and it had. And he hadn't had the wits about him to hide that from the sergeant. Hathaway, who'd had the misfortune of being free to pick him up at the airport as a favor to Innocent and hadn't been able to get shod of him since, had borne the brunt of Lewis' disenchantment with the city and the job that weren't what they used to be. It was hard to believe he had seen anything in Lewis but a grumpy, old has-been.

DS Hathaway shifted uncomfortably. He didn't exactly regret giving up his seat to the sister, but he'd be glad when Inspector Lewis showed. He filled in the last loop of the 'S', surveyed the completed sign, and climbed stiffly to his feet. Innocent owed him for this. He was hardly a lackey at her beck and call.

No, just a sergeant, and if he ever wanted to be paired with a decent detective and get a go at doing a bit more detecting and a lot less chauffeuring he'd have to keep right on saying, "Yes, Ma'am, I'd be happy to," any time she had a favor to ask. Just his luck to have the odd hour free before the late-morning meeting.

He wondered idly if he'd recognize his fare when he came through. He'd never met him, of course, but you never knew. The crims certainly seemed to know a cop when they spotted one. What did a DI look like? Best be looking for a proper haircut, smart suit, polished shoes. Straight off the plane though? Sure. Chief Superintendent Innocent was expecting their new man—actually old man, he was coming home after special assignment not taking a new post—to report almost immediately after arriving, and this was Oxford, after all—no scuffed shoes and rumpled suits here.

And, so, the first thing Hathaway saw about Lewis was that he was not in the least what he was expecting. It would be far from the last time he made that same discovery, and it wasn't something the order-loving sergeant was all that pleased to see. Not that it mattered. He expected he'd only ever have to put up with the one 'home, James' from the man. Innocent didn't like pairing her graduate entry officers up with the men in off the street.

The inspector had already been off on special assignment before Hathaway had joined the Oxfordshire Police. As Innocent had been unable to give him a physical description to watch out for, he assumed she too must have missed the man the first time round. Hathaway was mildly amused imaging her reaction to the rather rumpled, tired man with the understated Geordie accent he was bringing her way.

He also felt vaguely sorry for the man. Gone two years and everything different when he came home. The Thames Valley Police no longer existent, the old building converted to offices or apartments or who knew what, the old chief super dead and buried, all the old rules and regs rewritten. Hathaway himself didn't know the difference, but he had heard the grousing from the old hands. None of them had found the changes easy. Many saw them as an unspoken condemnation of the old ways. They were the ones who had the most difficulty 'positively adjusting', and he knew that a good number of them had left the chief super's office with the words, "Deal with it or move on," ringing in their ears. Hathaway had a suspicion Inspector Lewis would not be one to take the changes in stride.

He quickly saw that wasn't necessarily so when he asked "Has Oxford changed much since you went away?"

"Nope, it changed before I went," the older man answered in his soft voice, looking and sounding tired or sad or maybe both. It occurred to Hathaway that the man might not fight the changes because he was too…what…tired? depressed? apathetic?

Careful, James, he told himself, he's already proven appearances can be deceiving, and he's plainly exhausted as well. Give him a few nights' sleep and a few run-ins with the new Oxfordshire Police and then see what you think.

It didn't take that long though…the inspector's 'little detour' that ended at the cemetery called it depression or, at the least, grief, and, yeah, Lewis might just let all the changes slide right over him with or without a good night's sleep.

Hathaway decided then and there that he'd make it a practice of staying below the radar when this particular inspector needed a sergeant, just in case Innocent had no choice but to throw him to the lions. He wouldn't have his heart in the job. There'd be little to learn under him and most of the work would be in writing up reports camouflaging the fact that the inspector's half-hearted interest wasn't moving the case forward. Hathaway had already had his education in that regard under a couple of the older inspectors who were just putting in their time waiting for retirement. No, thank you.

Of course, the next thing he saw in Lewis was that he had once again gotten it wrong. At the crime scene, when he should have wearily collected his bag and trudged off to a taxi for his meeting with Innocent, the tired, worn-out inspector had come awake with interest. He'd shed his tiredness and his sorrow like last year's clothes, and taken up the case before Hathaway quite knew what was happening.

Not in the bullying, pushy way of some inspectors Hathaway had met in his short time on the police force. And not in a 'move out of the way, you sorry, useless blighter-let me show you how it's done' sort of arrogance with which Hathaway was also rather too well acquainted. No, when Inspector Lewis moved in on the case it was because there was a job to be doing, and, as he was there to be doing the job, he might as well get on with it.

"Okay on your own for a bit?" Lewis asked him before heading out after the institute's director. Hathaway stared after him in puzzlement. He had until that moment assumed it was his place to be looking after Lewis. He'd thought of the older man as his charge until he got him safely delivered into Innocent's waiting clutches. Obviously, Lewis didn't see things the same way, and Hathaway didn't know quite what to do about it. He couldn't exactly order the man off of his crime scene; he was outranked. What then? Let the old-timer barrel around mucking up the case?

He hadn't though, had it? Ruined the case? No, aside from his resistance to the scene suit …and he'd taken Hobson's friendly, little advice on that before he'd done any damage there—and what was that with Hobson anyway? He would have almost thought she was happy to see Inspector Lewis. In his run-ins with the doctor, he'd never found her so…congenial, gentle, or pleased to see anyone. Had he finally caught her on a good day or was she genuinely delighted to see Lewis?

Not the point though. What if anything did he need to do about Lewis, who had yet to speak to the chief super, taking over this case? He glanced out the window as he passed and watched the inspector interviewing Dr. Jeckyll. She didn't seem put off by his rather untidy appearance, in fact, she seemed…comfortable. Comfortable? Talking to the police in a murder investigation? She was either a very cool and calculated murderer, or…Inspector Lewis was very good at talking to the public. That was a skill upon which Hathaway was well aware he needed to improve. Maybe working a case or two with Lewis wouldn't be a total loss after all.

He'd glimpsed something else out that window. Something elusive, something he sensed rather than saw, something that he couldn't name until he'd seen it over and over again as the case progressed. Even so, it was something he recognized as important even as he failed to understand just what it was. In the end, it would prove to be the determinative factor in his offering Lewis that first refusal.

Oxfordshire police officers were expected to always maintain an air of polite solicitude in dealing with the public—a sort of 'compassion is our motto' type of attitude that most of them put on like an uncomfortable, ill-fitting jacket when it was called for and dropped on the floor to get wrinkled and soiled when it wasn't. But, in the two days it took to wind up the Regan Peverill case, Hathaway would see that with Lewis compassion wasn't a motto or something to be put on when going out to meet the public. No. Compassion was a part of him; it ran through his veins in sync with his life's blood. It defined him.

Hathaway had never read compassion on a list of required characteristics for the job. Never seen it on the checklists of necessary skills for a police officer. Never heard it associated in any way with being a 'good copper'. Yet, seeing it in Lewis, the sergeant, who'd meant to be a priest, who'd meant to have that kind of compassion towards his fellow man, instinctively knew it was very much tied into being the kind of cop he wanted to be.

"He was very understanding…a man you could talk to," Trudi Griffon said with a wistfulness in her voice about a man Hathaway would never know except through exaggerated station rumors; Lewis' sometimes exasperated, sometimes reverential, always pained, oblique comments; old, stained files; remarks like Trudi's from those who had known him, and the murmured condolences that Lewis seemed to collect everywhere they went in those early days from those who remembered him as the sergeant he used to be and couldn't help seeing the empty space beside him where his inspector had once been.

Hearing Mrs. Griffin say those things about the late Inspector Morse—Chief Inspector Morse, Hathaway thought they were a fitting epitaph, one he would be happy to leave behind when his time came. He wasn't a man to pay much heed to the little bit of station scuttlebutt that came his way, and he'd never had any interest in the 'good, old days' of the Thames Valley Police—keeping up with the new Oxfordshire was challenging enough, but even he had heard Morse's reputation. The best detective in the entire Valley, perhaps in all of the U.K. The hardest drinker and the hardest taskmaster. He'd heard the stories, and being a very new, very overworked and put-upon sergeant himself, he had had the passing thought that he didn't envy the man who had had the thankless job of being Morse's bagman.

And now he was saddled, until DI Grainger finished up with court, with the man who had been. If the purpose of the inspector/sergeant relationship was to train the subordinate officer to be the sort of detective the superior officer was…well, Hathaway had to thankfully assume it had failed, in most if not all regards, as far as Chief Inspector Morse and his sergeant were concerned.

Lewis wasn't adverse to the odd pint, but he hardly seemed a serious drinker. He was, as Hathaway was learning, for the most part a fair man, a good governor. He expected Hathaway to get on with the job and stay on top of the paperwork, but it wasn't as if he was expecting it all of Hathaway and nothing of himself. More as though he just expected the younger man to keep up. And Hathaway liked that. Not being underestimated or treated like a junior secretary and tea boy. Being treated almost like a valuable part of the team, as though he had something of value to contribute, as though he was there to do the job and not just stumble along trying to keep out of the way and not mess things up in the process. Hathaway liked that a lot.

And as for the thanklessness…Lewis expected a lot out of him, but he was generous enough with his thanks and his approval. And that missed specially-couriered, fast track ballistic report when Hathaway had gotten lost in the murders and forgotten the scut work? Lewis had drawn the reprimand as though it were a natural part of his duties as inspector. And he hadn't expected anything in return; even Hathaway's thanks had been waved aside as unnecessary. Had to make him the most forgiving, most easygoing governor Hathaway had ever had.

Oh, he was gruff, and could be a right proper sod when he felt like it. Mercurial was the word. Friendly, kind, chatty the one moment; broody and dark the next. That grief again, Hathaway expected. Though he wasn't certain.

There was something there beneath the surface. Something Hathaway couldn't read, something that made the man even more enigmatic than most. Hathaway had never been that good at reading people to start with, always had trouble 'interrelating' to others as his school reports used to say. The seminary would have agreed, and his service evaluations bore it out. So, not being able to read whatever it was lurking in Lewis, but being aware it was there nonetheless and that it was-what? threatening? dangerous? something to be leery of at any rate, Hathaway found it just the littlest bit frightening. He wished he could see the man as simple and straightforward as others seemed to.

And if everywhere they went on the case people seemed to bring up the ghost of Morse as though he haunted the streets of Oxford, at the station it was as though the whole place—outside of Innocent's sights at any rate—had been eagerly awaiting Lewis' return as though they expected him to unpack his bag and hand out gifts. Hobson wasn't the only one delighted to see the man. Grainger in the parking lot, grasping Lewis like a long lost brother with a heartfelt, 'Robbie! It's so good to have you back!' had only been the first. By the time, the case was closed, Hathaway was sure every man who'd been at the station before Lewis had left on assignment had been by to shake his hand and pat him on the shoulder.

"Never had a sarge like Robbie," DI Grainger told him on one of his phone check-ins with the man still officially in charge of the case. "Never a man to ask more than you could give, nor take credit for another man's work. When Lewis was the day sarge, you always knew where you were at…and as long as you weren't pilfering rods from the dead or slacking off on the job—and kept your opinions of your betters to yourself—you'd get a 'good work, lad, now off with you to get your supper' from him, and it wouldn't be forgotten on the day you needed a bit of time off the clock or a good word to the boss." Hathaway could almost hear the man shake his head before he added, "Another world it was. Back then. Not a place you'd recognize. No, we were all younger back then. Before the world grew up. Now what's this about oars?"

"Good man, Robbie Lewis," different ones told him when passing in the halls they discovered he'd temporarily found himself paired with the man.

A good man. That's what others saw when they looked at Inspector Lewis. And Hathaway wasn't really in position to deny it though he wasn't sure the church would concur. Valerie Lewis' death had left her husband angry at his Maker and, Hathaway suspected, a harder, angrier man than the one Grainger and the others remembered from 'back then.' Hathaway decided he himself would withhold judgment on Lewis' moral standing until he'd had time to observe the man awhile.

Of course, being cops, the comment probably had more to do with being a good cop than a righteous man. He'd automatically assumed…well, he still tended to think like a priest which didn't always help with the whole interrelating thing. Lewis was right; the move from priesthood to cop hadn't followed a logical progression. And the better pay had had nothing to do with his decision to join the force, though it was only now he was realizing that clearly for himself. Now when he was able to see someone of Lewis' caliber doing the job. Someone who knew how it should be done, not how the book said or how the higher-ups thought it should be. Someone who wasn't out to improve his stats but to outwit and outmaneuver the bad guys.

It wasn't that he hadn't gotten to see any good cops in his time on the force, it was just…well, there'd been some good ones along the way, men whose work and dedication he'd admired and even aspired to, but they'd been few and far between. And he'd never managed to make a good enough impression that any of them had offered to take him on for the long term. As much his own fault as theirs, Hathaway had to acknowledge to himself. If he had trouble reading others, he had even more trouble in letting others read him. It made, always, for a difficult time when it came to working closely and effectively with anyone, even if they were good at their jobs.

With Lewis, though…Lewis who actually had had the grumpy, old sergeant guarding the evidence room downstairs laughing and joking. DS Dickson, who Hathaway had never seen shift his lazy hide for anyone before, had practically begged for something to do for the inspector. And snide Dr. Hobson, if Lewis could make her soften her tone and give a civil answer, well, surely he could put up with an awkward but willing sergeant. If Hathaway could convince him to try.

Not that he had to beg. He knew that. The one person who seemed to like Hathaway as much as everyone else liked Lewis—and conversely appeared to have just as much trouble with Lewis as others had with Hathaway—would see to it he got a good placement. Chief Superintendent Jean Innocent liked her officers sharp, well educated, well dressed, and preferably as new to the Thames Valley as she was. That put him in her good graces, and Lewis could use a sergeant that was.

Hathaway had decided he wanted to be that sergeant. Because whether that 'good man' the others labeled Lewis with was a moral verdict or a professional assessment, the truth was Lewis was the best cop with whom he'd ever had the privilege of working. The inspector had come jetlagged, sideswiped by time, frustrated by a disapproving governor, and weighed down by grief into the most convoluted case with which Hathaway had ever been directly involved. And, even so, he'd outrun every one to the finish.

Hathaway would never have made it there without him. If he was reading the chief super right, she still wasn't quite sure how Lewis had gotten there at all. But give her her due. She knew greatness when she saw it the same as Hathaway—even if it occasionally dressed in a bright, tropical shirt and an off-the-rack suit and needed a shave. If she didn't, she wouldn't have been over there right now offering her golden boy to the inspector.

Hathaway suspected, somewhere in the last two days, she'd taken a look at the same old Thames Valley solved/unsolved stats he himself had studied in a down moment that very morning. In the years up to 1986, Chief Inspector Morse's stats had consistently run twenty per cent higher than those of anyone else in the books. In the years following, the years Lewis, R., Sgt. was crisply typed in the 'Case Sergeant' column, Chief Inspector Morse's stats had risen over thirteen per cent. The stats for Lewis, R., Insp. weren't, of course, as high, but they were respectable. Quite respectable for a newly promoted inspector. And they easily topped anyone else in the field until the year following the death of his wife when they had plummeted to a low and never rebounded.

Well, until today. A case like this—four deaths—solved in just under two full days might already have nudged that low above one or two of the others. No, no such luck. Wrong books. Well, then. A case like this…two days back and the man might already be on his way to the top of the stats. Even Innocent couldn't quibble with numbers like that as her grudging 'good result' acknowledged.

Hathaway though, standing there waiting for the inspector to give him the nod or a pass, hadn't needed to see it in on paper. He'd seen it in the two days Inspector Lewis had taken to solve the Regan Peverill case, in the man's eye for detail and in his quickness in seizing a thought and following it through to not its logical conclusion but to its inevitably human one.

Earlier, at the hospital, Trudi Griffon had said of Chief Inspector Morse, '"Morse listened to Danny, he didn't just dismiss him out of hand…He was a very decent man who understood the important things about people."

It was Lewis Hathaway had recognized in her words. His way of exuding understanding even when confronting his suspects, his willingness to listen to Hathaway and not dismiss him out of hand; his awareness that he'd stepped over Hathaway's sensibilities there with God and being willing to apologize for it…they were all part of what Hathaway had seen in the inspector when he had glanced out of the sleep institute's windows. That compassion that made Inspector Lewis not only a very good detective, but also, yes, Hathaway was ready to acknowledge it now, a good man.

As he saw Inspector Lewis give him the nod, DS James Hathaway hoped there was something to that whole inspector/sergeant thing after all.


End file.
